The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking,...

Workaholic attorney Samantha Sweeting has just done the unthinkable. She's made a mistake so huge, it'll wreck any chance of a partnership. Going into utter meltdown, she walks out of her London office, gets on a train, and ends up in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she's mistaken for an interviewee and finds herself being offered a job as housekeeper. Her employers have no idea they've hired a lawyer--and Samantha...

Assembling at their country house one final time before it is sold, four siblings and their children share past memories, hidden passions, and devastating secrets that threaten to overwhelm them.

"A heart-stopping tale of twisted obsession from the author who gives us "everything we love in a thriller" (O, The Oprah Magazine) The MacBrides lead a cozy life of upper class privilege: good looks (more or less), a beautiful home, tuition-free education at the prestigious private school where Rowan is headmaster, an altruistic righteousness inherited from magistrate Lydia. But when Rowan and his three grown children gather for the first time...

Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on 16 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Primarily of the bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of its title character, including her growth to adulthood,...

Edith Lavery feels she has been given the world when Charles, the Earl Broughton and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, proposes, but as she prepares for the wedding, Edith begins to wonder if she truly loves Charles or if she is merely in love with his title and wealth.

The self-interested disregard of a dying woman's bequest, an impulsive girl's attempt to help an impoverished clerk, and the marriage between an idealist and a materialist — all intersect at a Hertfordshire estate called Howards End. The fate of this beloved country home symbolizes the future of England itself in E. M. Forster's exploration of social, economic, and philosophical trends, as exemplified by three families: the Schlegels, symbolizing...

Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, takes a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the decaying country residence of Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house party, where her bombastic nephew decides that an after-dinner séance would be more entertaining than bridge. The lights go out and Cicely disappears.

Three estranged cousins all inherit an English seaside estate and decide to move in together, and while they begin to get to know one another, and deal with their own personal battles, they each rediscover the importance of family support in their lives.

A novel that spans from the Victorian era through World War I that finds famous children's book author Olive Wellwood taking in a runaway who reminds her of the characters in her books.